


A Substitute For Please

by cadkitten



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alcohol, Arguing, Coping, Depression, Hand Jobs, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Oral Sex, Past Sexual Abuse, Past Sexual Assault, Rape Aftermath, Relationship Negotiation, Suicidal Tendencies, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 21:51:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13645146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadkitten/pseuds/cadkitten
Summary: Please is a word built to make things easy and life has never been easy for either of them. Please is meant to smooth things over, but they're all rough edges. Please is a final ditch effort when hope is lost and, Neil, he knows there's still hope here.





	A Substitute For Please

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: For my writing challenge #28 Down and Out.  
> One of the most painful moments in the entire series for me was Andrew's confession of why _please_ affects him the way it does. That moment has stuck with me, etched itself in the hollows of my memory and I feel nothing but agony thinking on it. So here I torture myself and here I push the limits of who they are and what they can withstand.  
>  Beta: kate1zena  
> Song[s]: "Speech of Foxes" by Gem Club

" _Please_." The word echoes in the silence between them, louder than any of the desperate words that had come before it. The weight of it changes as it leaves Neil's tongue, as it gains gravity the longer it remains after being said. The taste is bitter and there's regret in his soul not an instant after he's spoken it. It's not something he planned to say, wasn't even something he thought about, he'd just wanted Andrew to stop walking away. 

He's stopped a few feet away, his back turned and his shoulders rigid. Whether it's from anger or from anguish, Neil cannot decipher, only that he's stopped his retreat in the face of their first real argument. 

The seconds tick by, Andrew's silence hanging heavier than the loudness of their angry words. Neil can hear his own breath, the frantic staccato of his heart in his ears. He hears the way his breath hitches and then the way his mouth reforms the word in pure silence, stricken by his own carelessness. 

More words form behind the first. _I'm sorry_ and _forgive me_ , all of them taking up only air and not a single bit of sound. There's pain and there's anguish, rage and disruption. He's fighting himself for something to say, anything to clear the board between them again, but he can't find it. There should be _something_ to say, some _way_ to fix what he's done, but there's only emptiness. He watches Andrew's form retreat and Neil can only hope he understands that he never meant to say it. That he never meant to hurt him like that.

\----

The second time he says it, it's just as unintentional as the first, though perhaps worse in some horrific way. He's hanging on by a thread, barely out the other side of his own psychological fall, and he's coping as best he can. There's the sweet smell of cake batter on the air and there's the distant scent of the cologne Andrew wore last week. His eyes are closed and his hands are fisted in Andrew's hair.

There's a desperate union between them, Andrew's mouth warming Neil in all the ways that chase out his demons, his hands firm over his hips, and his breath ghosting over his skin. He feels like he's been wrapped in a dozen blankets and while he's content he's also on fire. His insides are searing with need and his mind is a thousand places at once, none of them crystalline and all of them viewed through the hazy glass of lust. 

His fingers are trembling and Andrew's working him up quicker than usual and Neil feels like he's ripping apart at the seams, feels like he's split on the atomic level and Andrew's trying to smash him back together. His breath is a gasping horror show, his heart a crazy backroom jig, and his thoughts are slippery, falling through his fingers in opposition to the way he won't let Andrew go.

When he says it, it's strained and it's the only word he can grasp onto inside his mind. It's need and it's desperation and it's a plea to save him from himself, to let him come undone and then make him whole again. 

" _Please_!"

It's fragile and whimpered, a sexuality-soaked plea on the stale air of the room and it stops Andrew dead.

It isn't until his touch has retreated, until he looks to see the sick look in Andrew's face, that he knows what he's done. And it isn't until Andrew's left that Neil finds his mind just long enough to grasp that he's just made the biggest mistake of his life. He sits with his hand over his mouth, with the sting of saline in his eyes, and he loses what little of himself he had back, if only because he didn't deserve to be glued back together today. He doesn't deserve Andrew and he doesn't deserve to be whole.

\----

Neil swears never to use that word, to never let such syllables past his lips again. He won't hurt Andrew like that again. He doesn't know if he can pick up the pieces if he does. He remembers the pain in his eyes in much the same way he believes Andrew recalls every single thing that's ever happened to him. His mind may not be eidetic, but it's good enough to show him that moment on repeat for months on end. 

This time when the urge comes, he replaces it with silence. When they're both exhausted and barely still walking, he swallows the word down and strikes it from his vocabulary. Instead of the plea, all he says is, "Let's go home," and that seems like it works just fine. 

\----

The next time it comes up, he's not sure what to replace it with, isn't even sure there's an actual answer to the question that isn't _please_. Nicky's two glasses into the vodka bottle and more than a little bit hysterical. Neil's still not sure what happened to get him here, but he's dealing with the fallout anyway. 

Nicky's mask is firmly in place – the one that hides the dull pain behind his eyes – and he's being loud and obnoxious, petulant in a way that reminds Neil of a puppy that wants to get its way. It reminds him of someone else and that puts steel in his heart.

"Give it to me." His hand is outstretched, trying to get the damn bottle from Nicky before he either dumps it all over himself or drinks the whole thing before the match later tonight. Whatever's bothering him, Neil will get it out of him before the game, but this isn't the way.

"What do you say?" The words are taunting, angry, and there's hatred in Nicky's voice that Neil's never heard there before.

 _Please_ swims at the edge of his mind, the correct answer to this particular brand of question, but Andrew's three feet away and his eyes are on the scene. Nothing in Neil will ever let him use that word again and if he thought his heart was steel before it's lead in an instant.

He knows there's anger in his eyes as he rips the bottle away from Nicky and he only finds a tiny bit of regret when he jabs a finger at the bedroom and demands that he sleep it off. He'll deal with the fragility of whatever Nicky's going through later – he _will_ – but right now he's got his own fear to swallow down. 

His eyes meet Andrew's and there's nothing in his gaze. Emptiness and the unfeeling walls he's placed up in front of himself and Neil knows that even though it wasn't spoken, it was _noticed_. Even though he avoided saying it, the word was still thought. 

His hands shake and his head feels light as he lowers himself onto the couch and he tells himself, _this one isn't on me_.

\----

The word almost works itself out of him in the throes of passion again. He's been gasping and panting between everything Andrew's been doing to him for what feels like hours but surely has been less than twenty minutes. His insides are quaking and his thighs feel like jelly. If anything, he's uncertain how he's still standing, supposing only Andrew's hand wrapped around his cock is preventing his descent toward the floor. 

He can feel Andrew's arousal pressed against his thigh and he's sailing somewhere above cloud nine at the sensation of having him there, at being allowed to feel his reaction and not simply guess at it. They've never quite managed a conventional sexual relationship and while it doesn't usually matter to Neil, there are things he likes to find out – knowing how much Andrew likes doing this to him is one of those things.

His head thumps against the wall and his hips arch. His hands are fisted in his pockets and he's lost, sailing free and he knows he only needs a little bit more to drop right over that ever-present cliff. He's been held back too long now and his body's hellfire and his mind's a hurricane. He _needs_ and while he's still never sure how Andrew draws things out that no one else ever could, he doesn't truly want to question it.

He wants to _beg_ and he wants to _plead_ , and he wants to let Andrew know just how much he needs that last little something to send him hurdling over the edge. His breath gasps and he chokes himself on the bitter edges of the words, shoving them all away until he's screaming instead, until his voice is shattered and he's breaking, until he's exploding into a million pieces and for one single instant he's certain there's nothing left.

When he comes back down, he's shaking in Andrew's arms and there's only pleasure in Andrew's eyes. And so, he knows, he held it back.

\----

It's a bad day. There's violence in Andrew's gaze and while it's a breath of fresh air in comparison to the deadness that's been there for weeks, he can't find solace in it. He knows what it means and he wonders if this time he'll be strong enough to hold them both together through this storm. 

He's tried to talk to him, tried to _coax_ him without directly asking to open up. He's tried using Bee as an intervention but he doubts it worked since the reaction was minimal. He's done all he can without standing in Andrew's way and it hurts him to think that this once he could be less than enough.

There's anguish in his heart as he watches Andrew's back retreating across the parking lot, past their car, beyond the edges of the grass risers that mark the end of the lot. He knows if he lets him walk away this time that he'll walk away forever. It's not like Andrew to run and it's not like Neil to chase, but he does this time. Does it because he knows in the pit of his stomach if he doesn't then this is the last time he'll ever see Andrew's face. He does it because he's finally admitted he's in love and nothing in the world can ever threaten to rip Andrew away from him without hell to pay. Even Andrew himself.

He's in Andrew's path before he can second guess it, steps in front of him as he tries to detour around, and he remains an immobile wall in his retreat. If he lets him through, he lets Andrew go from his life. If he stays, maybe he can be the one last anchor in Andrew's storm.

Neil just has to be enough. Just this one last time.

There's anger and anguish in Andrew's eyes and when he hands Neil his knives, he doesn't flinch in the face of them. Instead, he tucks them away and holds out his hand; when Andrew takes it, Neil doesn't even _think_ about the word. There's no need for it here. Not between them and never again. 

Please is a word built to make things easy and life has never been easy for either of them. Please is meant to smooth things over, but they're all rough edges. Please is a final ditch effort when hope is lost and Neil knows there's still hope here. 

This time, he knows silence is enough. He knows _presence_ is enough and he understands it always has been.


End file.
